Thumbs up, down
A devoted father, driver’s license centers, and local business mergers get green light.
There’s still time to get dad that pair of socks for Father’s Day. Instead, we’d recommend a family reading of Chronicle reporter Olivia P. Tallet’s narrative, “Out of Time.” It’s available on HoustonChronicle.com and is the story of a devoted father who, despite adhering to orders from ICE, faces deportation this month. President Trump originally said he was after “bad hombres.” Juan Rodriguez is not one of them, but this parent of a recent Cristo Rey graduate has been caught in newly interpreted standards that crack down on him and potentially millions of law-abiding immigrants. Rather than tearing Rodriguez away from his family and forcing others into the shadows, it’s time to develop an immigration system that is fair, equitable and functional.
Proving the adage that all stories are local, two other Houston dads were instrumental in a massive deal that went down Friday. They fathered Jeff Bezos and John Mackey, the leading figures in the proposed merger of Whole Foods into Amazon. Miguel Bezos worked in the Houston oil industry when his son attended River Oaks Elementary, and Bill Mackey was a Memorial resident and accountant when his son went to Spring Branch schools.
If the granddaddy of Texas political consultants, Allen Blakemore, was advising Robert Johnson, the newly elected judge would be sending out invitations for a fundraiser. Suddenly, some of the slickest lawyers in Texas want Johnson’s ear. The first-term judge won — if you can call it that — a lottery sending to his court the criminal matter of State v. Warren Kenneth Paxton Jr. As he presides over the case against our attorney general, we wish Judge Johnson good luck. But it doesn’t matter. Whatever he does is going to be appealed.
When you alert the media, you get results. A day after Chronicle reporter James Pinkerton wrote that the DPS was going to cut back office hours at already maddening driver’s license centers, it riled up state Sen. John Whitmire. He got the governor’s office on Line One, and the still-too-brief schedule was restored. Shouldn’t offices like this be open when the bulk of customers don’t need to take off from school or jobs?
If you’re reading this in a high-rise, this quote’s for you: “… if you’re woken up in the middle of the night with an alarm system going off and a voice saying you need to evacuate, that’s not the time to start learning the layout of your building.” That comes from Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña. He held a news conference in the wake of a tragic London fire that killed at least 30 and injured many others. His message was “be prepared, have a plan.” Peña, as you will read in an editorial in this spot Sunday, needs his own plan after a damning audit about HFD was released this week.
Donald Trump’s Department of Justice this week gave approval to a massive merger between Houston-based Baker Hughes and General Electric’s oil and gas division. The new company becomes the secondlargest energy services company in the world, trailing only Schlumberger. The new Baker Hughes will have dual headquarters in Houston and London with CEO Lorenzo Simonelli stationed in the UK. We can only hope this doesn’t end up like the Continental-United merger that cost Houston jobs, cachet and left us without a stellar corporate citizen. We would ask the president, however, is this kind of a deal how you truly make America great again?
In our weekly installment, “Politicians: The hypocrites among us,” consider Monday’s move by Gov. Greg Abbott. He signed a $217 billion (with a “b”) two-year budget. But as part of the process, the guv vetoed $4 million the Legislature included to fight crime in Houston. Less than a month earlier, Abbott held a news conference in Houston touting his focus on fighting gang crime in our city. The crime, it appears to us, is the governor picking the pocket of crime fighters. Or is this political retribution? Crime Stoppers, which would have received the grant, was recently run by Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg.
Apologies for piling on to Greg Abbott, but his idea of overturning tree ordinances in 50 different cities is preposterous. That’s one of his goals for the upcoming legislative special session. In Abbott’s world, The Woodlands could become The Flatlands. Again, this smacks of retribution. The city of Austin demanded that pre-governor Abbott replant trees after a protected pecan on his property died. “It’s socialistic, is what it is,” Abbott said at the time. We say let local governments — not the state — determine what is right for green space.